The other day here, writing about possible presidential candidates, I wrote, "I like what I've seen of [Pete] Buttigieg but it's way too early in the mating game for me to pledge my heart to anyone."
As I typed that line, I reminded myself of an evening back when I was 23 or so. I was in-between lady friends when a buddy of mine talked me into going with him to a bar out on Van Nuys Boulevard in the valley here. As a lifelong non-drinker (still), I am almost never seen in bars but the appeal of this one, he said, was not the beverages. It was the near-certainty that when you left, it would be with a member of the opposite sex with whom you would, to use a euphemism for having sex, "sleep."
He was so sure we would both — as he put it — "score" that he insisted we take separate cars. I was curious about what such a place was like and also curious about how I would respond to such an environment. If it did work the way he promised, could I bring myself to depart with some lady I'd known less than an hour? That did not sound like me. At that age, everyone I'd dated was someone I'd known since at least high school.
It turned out I couldn't, in part because the get-to-know-someone ritual seemed to center around the consumption of significant volumes of alcohol. Sitting there with my 7-Up, I felt awkward because I knew I looked awkward…and I looked awkward because I felt awkward. Awkward is never enticing. I also wasn't all that attracted to any woman on her third Mai Tai. I kept thinking that some of the pairings I saw departing together wouldn't make it as far as bed if there were alert policemen in the area equipped with Breathalyzers.
Anyway, George and I were amidst folks aged 20-50, most of them dressed and coiffed better than that rathole of a bar warranted. If it had not been a place where everyone was out to impress the opposite sex, I think The Incredible Hulk could have passed the dress code there.
Everyone was drinking while nibbling on Chex Mix and being ultra-ultra-charming as they table-hopped from one potential companion to another. The conversations were loud and you couldn't help but eavesdrop on some of them. No matter what the alleged topic was, the subtext was always "So…shall we go to your place or mine?"
The oddest thing though was how every time the front door opened, every single person in the room stopped to check out the latest arrival. Everyone had to see which gender was entering the mix and gauge how attractive that new entrant was. If it was someone of the other gender, was that person more attractive than your already-present options? If they were of your gender, were they competition for you?
Near us was a guy in a beige leisure suit (it was that era or slightly past it) and he'd been "entertaining" — I am using that word loosely — a decent-looking lady. The door opened and he stopped in mid-anecdote to check out what we all saw was a tall, voluptuous blonde coming in. With nary a nod to the woman he'd been talking with, he immediately bee-lined for the blonde, cutting-off all other guys who were trying to get to her first.
The woman was roughly a "10." That's according to the official Cruel and Shallow Rating Scale of Female Appearance which you're supposed to abandon when you graduate college. I actually heard others in the bar, including other women, whispering "Ten."
The lady that the guy in beige abandoned without so much as an "Excuse me" was maybe a "7" on that scale but she was not alone for long. Almost immediately, Leisure Suit Larry's chair was taken over by another fellow who'd left the "5.5" he'd been chatting with. It was that kind of place…everyone trading up or at least trying to.
I can't tell you how outta-place I felt there and not just because of the liquor, though there was that. I kept wanting to leave but George kept wanting me to stay. In this room, nothing looked more pathetic than one guy sitting by himself. I kept saying, "There's no one here who interests me" and George kept saying, "It's way too early to fall in love." That was the line I was remembering when I wrote about the presidential race.
At some point, I guess I blinked and missed the proper moment to fall in love. It came a little after 11 PM and it was like the bartender rang a bell which you couldn't hear if you didn't have a couple of drinks in you. Suddenly, four-fifths of those present upped and departed, two by two. Some of them seemed to be taking whoever they could get and leaving with their sixth choices. Two women looked us over, decided they weren't that desperate and left to go…somewhere.
I left alone and so did George…and he was quite depressed about it. I felt a tad insulted but also kinda glad that I didn't have to now put on an act and nurture the shallowest of relationships with a woman who was drunk enough to find me cute enough.
And since the parallel popped into my head the other day, I'm having trouble not thinking of the battle for the Democratic Presidential Nomination as a much different process. I don't have to fall in love now. Someone better may still walk in the door and, if not, someone already in the room will start looking better to me. This time though, I'm not leaving alone. If Trump or even Trumpism gets another term, I may have to take up drinking.